Till Death Do Us Part
I still wear my wedding ring after all this time. I feel the silver edges digging into my skin and branding myself with what used to be. And when I miss you a little extra I wander around our house and stare at the lively photos we took together while on our honeymoon. I stare at the Victorian paintings we hung on the walls, the once vivid colors are now brown and muddy. I become the phantom of the evening when the clock strikes one a.m and see hallucinations in the corner of my sight of you in your wedding dress. The lace on your gown grips around my neck and suffocates me into rest, though when I wake there’s no evidence.
It's those versions of you that made me really wish you had turned off the synapses in my brain yourself. When I see you sway to the wind of the dead my unbeating heart rushes to flow to the tips of my fingers and then it’s all worth it. In the light you’re sickenly beautiful.
Sometimes I wish our house was still ours. It’s hard watching you move on. What else was I expecting? I saw how alone you were after I passed. How you’d talk to yourself in empty rooms believing you were talking to god. What you forgot, my darling, is that gods don’t speak the language of lonely girls. I listened to you the entire time, but I like to think I’m better than god for you. For a long time there was this clinical satisfaction in seeing you suffer because that meant as long as you cried you still loved me. So when I saw him holding you for the first time I was angry. The sort of anger that when boiled down it’s nothing but livid primal violence. If my rind was still lush with pink I'd sew my eyes shut down to the lash and wish without sight I wouldn’t have to witness your infidelity.
I had hoped you still were dedicated to me like you used to be. It pains me to no longer see you brush your hair and sob my name like a seance, it was my favorite part of your grieving. Hearing yourself enchant every strand of your hair with the last bit of brutal obsession you had left gave you the strength to press on. What does he provide for you that I did not? That I do not? I promise I’m still the man I was, forget my brittle bones and my blue toned skin, I still am him. You weren’t grieving over my absence but the absence of your humanity.
When Mr. Fitz visited us back in May, I knew something was wrong. You tiptoed around the house with the ends of your fingers running against the railing of the staircase, your hair cascading down to the floor. The dust collected on our golden book case after you ditched your daily tasks.
On Monday he left his jacket on our dining room table to give an excuse to come back. Tuesday he brought you coffee, which was strange because I wasn’t aware he knew how you like your coffee. Wednesday evening he called you unexpectedly for ‘maintenance’, the call lasting more than the rest of the night. Thursday you wore pearls and shimmer on your cheeks when you went out. Friday you refused to touch me, never daring to fall for my sways of affection.
The home we had built was decaying around us and you didn’t even seem to notice. That night when the candles were the only form of light and our sentences caught themselves in the thick air, you spoke “Jonathan, I’m leaving you. There's another man.” I thought you were pulling a sick joke until I saw the way you looked at me. I believed perhaps we could play a game, and close our eyes and pretend that you still love me, because that would be better right? I would live my life miserable over and over as long as I could be with you. I'd lock you down with a ball and chain permanently. If I’m a serial killer what’s the worst that I could ever do to a girl who’s already hurt?
This is where things got a little fuzzy. One second your hand was placed in mine, your thumbs running over my knuckles and your kiss on my neck, and with a blink of an eye and a gust of wind it was replaced with a knife. “Jonathan, please. What are you doing?” You screamed, a dark cloud filling your iris.
“Something I should have done a long time ago, I knew you wanted him. You looked so fucking sick having your eyes on him while being married.”
My dress shoes slide against the dark hardwood floors with every step I take. My breath becomes rigged with little shocks of electricity running down to the tips of my fingers. My hands knocked over the picture frames hanging on the wall, containing faint pictures of us. “No Jonathan, I loved you it’s just-“
“Just what? Does he love you differently than I do? Tell me! Is it money or is it looks?” I howled.
“You know I really do forget how naïve you are. Men like him want nothing more than to corrupt you, it's their foul little fetish. So who will you have to protect you? Keep you pure from everything wrong in the world?” My breath fanned her face as I grabbed a hold of her shoulders, a struggled sob leaving her mouth. “You don’t understand the position you have put me in, my dear” I confessed, as I ran the tip of the knife down her throat. She looked so pretty terrified.
The black spots in my vision spread and the once white flower bloomed into red. Each petal fell to your feet like promises I failed to deliver to you. For a moment when the chemicals were rushing to my head everything felt okay. In that moment in time you had still loved me and the estate was still our paradise away from society. Your betrayal was something I had seen coming, women like you will never understand the horror and shame men experience when in love with a call girl.
The blade digging in my chest sucked the oxygen from my lungs. Your hair fell over my eyes and your salty tears in my mouth. You called to the deity of hopelessness begging to reverse what had been done, though no one can hear your cries from here. The dialect that dripped from your lips hit my aura and taught me the language no enity knew.
I saw flashes of indigo and maroon and felt textures of velvet and silk on my skin. I remembered the night of our wedding you whispered, ‘If you told me the stars were fake, I’d doubt they were made of fire’. I believed you down to the stems of my heart and so please, my love, how could you have killed me when I was your savior?
My name is Hayli Renee Glass. I am a Hungarian-American student with an intense passion and love for literature. I began writing when I was an elementary school student after being introduced to Donna Tartt, Jane Austin, and Dazai Osamu. I find myself writing about growing up, the relationship between death and life, and the topics that people often dance around.
I wrote this piece based on one of my favorite singers, Lana Del Rey, and her album based on abuse and death. I wanted to capture this very elegant style within the writing and in doing so this became one of my all time favorite works. This is for the readers who love a classic story with an eerie twist.